


I Try to Talk Refined

by SpaceJackalope



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Bondage, F/M, Femdom, Fluff and Smut, Helen is nonbinary, I can do anything I want!, Post-Book 4: A Conspiracy of Kings (Queen's Thief), Pre-Book 6: Return of the Thief (Queen's Thief), Rope Bondage, Sophos is bi, they're! in love!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:08:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27921283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceJackalope/pseuds/SpaceJackalope
Summary: The queen of Eddis and the king of Sounis take some time alone.
Relationships: Eddis | Helen/Sophos
Comments: 16
Kudos: 26





	I Try to Talk Refined

**Author's Note:**

> Good afternoon, QT Discord community :3c
> 
> Oscars speech voice: ...and I'd like to thank storieswelove and the whole Sophos Appreciation Squad, for always believing in me and never shutting up.
> 
> Title from "Talk" by Hozier.

“We can finally have some privacy,” Helen said, in an exaggerated grumble that told Sophos she had been restraining herself behind a polite facade. He was still learning to identify Helen’s tells when they were in public and she was choosing to be cordial. He smiled down into her cross face and bit his lip when her dimples appeared in answer. One of Eddis’s attendants received her earrings from her outstretched hand and took them to a chamber adjoining this, the sitting room of her guest chambers in Attolia.

“It must have been very urgent for you to lose patience with sparring,” he teased, letting her take his large hand and pull him into a third room. She motioned for him to shut the door behind them, and when he had done it, back turned to her, she lifted onto her toes and kissed the nape of his neck open-mouthed. He’d grown his hair out, without really meaning to, and then decided it looked nice. Today it was in two braids. Perhaps he should leave his neck vulnerable more often. “I see,” he gasped softly, covering one of her hands on his waist with his own. “Top priority.”

Helen relaxed to her natural height, allowing him to turn and kiss her mouth softly, three times. She kissed his jaw and throat and hand, breaking away to remove her jacket--and then her linen undershirt as well. Sophos blushed. He felt he’d missed a signal, somewhere in the last few minutes. Helen lifted her muscular, tattooed arms to fluff her rigorously-combed hair out of shape. Her nipples were pierced. She rested one booted foot on the lid of a decoratively painted wooden chest and began working on the laces with swift, sure motions. When she kicked that boot off, she glanced up, and Sophos was still leaning against the door, fully dressed, one hand supporting the elbow of his other arm, raised to cradle his own scarlet cheek. 

“Are you alright, Sophos?”

Her fiance made a shy sort of wiggle, odd on such a large frame, and nodded enthusiastically. “There’s just a great many things to appreciate, at the moment.” He glanced half-shyly down her torso, biting his lip. 

She lifted her chin, very pleased. “Anything specific you want to mention?”

“Shh, you know you’re gorgeous.” He bit his lip again. 

“That’s never stopped you before,” she laughed, moving to untie her other boot. 

He shrugged. “I talk too much.”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

“I do during intimate moments. Everyone says so.”

Helen gave him an assessing look. “Does this ‘everyone’ tell you you blush too much, too?”

Sophos laughed easily, eyes falling shut briefly. “So so so. My tongue is at my queen’s bidding, dear.”

“Bold of you to think  _ I _ ever ask twice.”

He took two strides and knelt at her feet, meeting her eyes the whole time. “This, right here.” He traced a thumb along the soft, shadowed fold of flesh where the underside of her breast kissed her ribs. “This alone would send Mycenae to war.” Helen had thought she was long past being flustered by a lover. She made a soft sound, and Sophos moved his hand to curl around her bicep, tattooed with the ornately flourished griffon due to the title Eddis. She flexed, and grinned when his face lit up. “You could probably pin me,” he said. “To the bed, I mean. You’re so  _ strong _ , at least as strong as--well, someone else who could, but I wasn’t as strong then myself, so maybe I’m wrong, what do you think?” 

“I think I could keep you still with a word.” Her eyes sparkled, and she stroked his cheek. 

“Well, you’re welcome to try, but I’m not very good at following directions. I get distracted.” He traced the downy line of hair below her navel. “You’re  _ very _ distracting.”

“I could always tie you up.” It was--mostly--a joke, but Sophos shivered against her, and when she nudged one stockinged foot between his thighs she felt his erection twitch. She raised her eyebrows, mischief in her now. “You want that? You want me to use you, Bunny?”

He nuzzled into her palm. “I shan’t  _ insist. _ ” He was trying not to laugh, but he fairly glowed with delight. 

She tipped his head back and kissed his forehead. “You’d better strip off while I see what I have packed. I don’t know who could resist giving you a treat after that performance.” She moved away to investigate a bureau, the sound of Sophos’s buttons clicking faintly behind her.

“Performance?” he asked after a pause, sounding like he regretted asking before he had finished the word. Wrong drawer, just socks.

“Going pink and poetical on your knees is usually a good way to get what you want. Or doesn’t it work on everyone?”

“Helen,” Sophos replied, and this time he did laugh, “are you  _ jealous _ ?”

She turned, surprised. “No.” She meant it. “I think I’m jaded. I’m sorry, Sophos, you just say these things like they’re  _ easy _ .”

“They are,” he agreed, pulling his shirt off. “Because you make me feel”--he pulled a wry face--“comfortable. It’s why I was so unsurprised to see you in my dreams. Like opening up my chest and finding your heart beating next to mine. I’m sorry, I’ll stop.”

“How could anyone have  _ ever _ told you to talk less?!” Helen burst out. 

“Oh, so  _ that’s _ what’s gotten under your skin.” She ruffled her own hair sheepishly in assent. “Maybe I didn’t find anyone else this inspiring. Maybe I just talked about bird feathers and didn’t notice they were trying to undress me.” 

“That does sound like you,” she agreed warmly, turning back to her search. “I adore you,” she added.

“I’m glad,” he answered, voice soft and somehow more private. Both of them were quiet for a time, except for the rustle of Sophos’s clothes and Helen’s methodical hunt through her neatly folded underpinnings until she found a pretty wooden box she brought with her to the bed. The king of Sounis, now naked and seeming perfectly at ease, sat on the bed beside it and propped his chin up philosophically as she clicked it open. “Do you always travel like this?”

“Hm?”

“With three dildos and”--he poked a small shiny bit with a finger--“I don’t actually know what those are.”

“Bells,” she told him, radiating innocence. He looked thoughtful. “Maybe another time. And who doesn’t like to be prepared?” She pulled the skein of silk rope out. “Everyone likes options, and I did  _ plan _ on marrying you on this trip from the beginning, you know.”

“Well, it’s nice to know you’re not here to ravish me and leave me unwed.” Sophos batted his eyelashes. 

“Poor lion, at my mercy.”

“Always,” he agreed, cheerful and smiling, shifting to let her wrap rope around his chest.

“Have you done this before?”

“What, sex?” She gave him a look. He shrugged shyly. “Mostly mouths and hands.” She nodded encouragingly at him. “Oh! It’s-it’s not a very interesting history. I don’t know, sometimes someone I’m friendly with touched my knee and said something like ‘do you wanna go fool around?’ and then we, um, did that.”

“Um,” she agreed, criss-crossing deftly.

“I didn’t have very good taste,” he added. 

Helen ran her hands across his thighs. “None of them ever told you that you look like Cello and Miras combined, I take it?” Sophos looked truly surprised and pleased. “Then no, terrible taste.”

“The magus had a friend whose apprentice was my age. He was probably the best. I think he has a lover in Melenze now, or a patron, or both. Maybe I’ll write to him about repainting a mural in one of my receiving rooms that I truly hate.” He bit his lip again, amused. “Hyacinth was my worst misstep.”

She stopped and looked at him, mouth open. “ _ Letnos _ Hyacinth? You didn’t even like him!”

“We can’t all have men lining up for us at the front gate, o my queen.” He was laughing too hard to fully mean it, voice a little shallow from the strictures of the rope. “Some of us repine in exile with shallow flautists.”

“Well, I’m not musical, but at least I’m deep,” Helen deadpanned. Sophos nodded, then got the joke and let out a moan. “Here, fold your arms behind your back. How are you doing?”

“Happy. I’m very, very happy, my lovely.” That wasn’t precisely what she’d been after, but Helen suspected that if pressed for specifics about his physical and emotional comfort, Sophos would give her another mercurial almost-smirk and tease her for fussing over him. She trusted him to tell her if something wasn’t quite right. Overwhelmed with affection, she leaned in to kiss him slow and deep, feeling his pulse pick up wherever their skin touched.

She inhaled, nuzzling his face, getting her plan in order. “All men, huh?”

Sophos tilted his head. “In my past? Yes. In general?” He rocked his head side to side. “Rounding down.”

She nodded. “Would you enjoy eating me out, or sticking to something more familiar?”

“Not unfamiliar, and  _ yes _ , please--will you maybe let me slide to the floor, it’d be easier--and oh,  _ Helen _ .” He said her name on an exhale, like his whole soul formed the word. He slid gracefully to the floor and cushioned his head on her proffered thigh. “I haven’t wanted anything so much in all my life. You’re everything I dreamed of, and wonderful in ways I didn’t know I could.” 

She ran her fingers through the hair at the back of his skull. “I am, aren’t I?” she said, awe in her voice.

He lifted his head from the kisses he was planting on the delicate skin of her inner thighs. “I have  _ met _ you,” he told her. She thought she understood what he meant, and it was enough to make her blush, but then her heart clenched as she realized. Not that he loved her at first sight, or anything so implausible, but that the things he loved about her were so apparent to his eye that he couldn’t fathom anyone failing to see, or failing to understand. She hoped she saw him so completely in return.

“Tell me,” he said seriously, “if the scar tissue is too rough.” She had barely felt it on her thigh, and told him so. He rubbed his lips experimentally across her skin, giving her time to protest before moving inwards. Sophos’s confidence returned, and he sucked her into his mouth and licked tenderly along her folds. Helen was so wet that she could hear the slick, almost crackly sound of his tongue opening her up, and then she stopped caring about anything but how eagerly and thoroughly he uses his mouth, leaving no part of her unattended to with lavish focus. She came, and didn’t shift or tell him to stop, and he licked and sucked her through a second orgasm before her breathing could even out. 

His chin shone with slick, and his lips had turned apple-skin red. He grinned broadly at her, as if her face was praise enough, and rested his chin on her knee. “Alright, clever lad, my treasure, tell me something I can do for you,” Helen cooed, running one thumb across his lower lip and sighing as he pliantly took the digit into his mouth. He released her with a small, obscene  _ pop _ sound. 

“I’m so close, though! All I really want is for you to kiss me. And make me come, too, but more so the kissing.” 

“You’re really on a mission to destroy me, Sophos.”

“I do try my best.”

She helped him return to the bed, settled him against cushions and the headboard, and kissed him with the fervor of swearing an oath. He’d been telling her he loved her for years; perhaps she felt like it was her turn to do the sweeping off of feet. Later she would make a list of things to try. “How would you feel about me riding you now?” 

“ _ Yes. _ I would feel yes, please.”

She sank onto his lap, once more kissing his lips, and when he pulled away for breath she kissed his cheek and temple. “Oh,” Sophos said, almost casually, his eyes fluttering shut and head tipping back until he lightly hit the tall headboard. “I see.”

“Intellectually stimulating, huh?”

“Like you said, you’re very deep.” He whimpered and bucked his hips. “This is a lot. Good a lot.” She rolled her hips to make him cry out. “I’m glad you tied me,” he panted. “I’m just--I don’t have to--”

“You can just sit there and look pretty?” Sophos  _ giggled _ and tried to hide his face in the pillows, but there was nowhere to go. Helen turned his face back, gentle but demanding. He was trying to meet her rhythm. She shook her head, bracing one hand on his chest. “It’s alright. Just take it. Let me spoil you. You feel wonderful, you don’t even have to do anything.” His brow eased. “That’s right. Gorgeous. You’re so nice and thick, Bunny.”

He did not blush harder when he came, his face instead looking truly peaceful and unselfconscious. Helen rubbed herself on his thigh for a third climax of her own, and he looked at her like she’d hung the stars. He hummed to himself as she untied him, his eyes mostly shut and limbs jellified. It was a tune from before the invaders, about a girl whose lover had slipped away with her to a shady grove. Helen wasn’t used to hearing it in such a deep voice, but it had a warm, true sound to it more appealing than convention. When he reached the verse about the girl’s skirt being hitched slowly up her legs, he sang aloud, changing the words to “Helen’s” strong, broad back, and her strong, steady hands, a soldier’s hands, doing him, undoing him, and not a ring on his finger...he winked at her, taking the damp cloth she brought from the washstand and running it across his face and between his legs. 

“May I stay?” he curled into a crescent shape on his side. “ _ Can _ I stay?”

“I say you’re more than welcome in my bed at all hours doing all things. And if you mean public opinion, what can they do? Force you to make an honest woman of me?” He snorted, and Eddis was flattered. She lay down beside him.

“You smell nice,” he murmured. “I really do love you, you know.”

“I do. I do know. I’m so very glad.” 

The queen’s ladies knew that Eddis did not permit her guests to stay and sleep with her--if there was no helping it, she would leave herself and walk or read until they could be kindly sent away. They gave her as much privacy as was possible, but they all noted that Sounis stayed until the shadows were long, and that she kissed him at the door, both of them rumpled and sleepy-eyed, and there was an undiscussed consensus in his favor.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fandom that needs smut in its veins. 
> 
> Helen? Hot. Sophos? Hot. That's my thesis, your honor.
> 
> I am on Tumblr as Cartograffiti.
> 
> The Queen's Thief Discord server, currently known as The Geninsula, can be joined via this link! https://discord.gg/JYJufae


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